Yin Ling Cheung received her PhD in Linguistics from Purdue University, USA. She is a linguist who specializes in academic writing, writing instruction, and writing teacher identity. Her unique contribution to academic writing and writing instruction is the development of a socio-cognitive and motivation-and-learning (SCML) model to teaching writing, whose novelty is to help students improve their writing by focusing on the rhetorical goal and thinking processes embedded in academic writing, assisted by ICT integrated into the pedagogy. Application of the SCML model for inducing productive self-directed and collaborative learning among primary school students is being supported by a competitive research grant (OER 09/17 CYL). Other projects include (i) investigating Singapore primary and secondary students' perceptions, challenges and attainment in Chinese and Tamil composition writing: a comparative study on computer-based and paper-and-pen-based writing, and (ii) developing a new smartphone app with built-in predictive and prescriptive analytics. The app, called Mobile Education Networked Tutoring on Request (MENTOR), aims to understand tutoring (e.g., one-on-one consultation) needs of users and find best peer tutors for them. Her research has been funded by the NIE Academic Research Fund, the MOE Education Research Funding Programme, Singapore Millennium Foundation, Research Support for Senior Academic Administrator Grant, and the International Research Collaboration Seed Fund.

Yin Ling teaches courses in academic writing at the National Institute of Education. She directs the Graduate Research and Academic Development (GRAD) Centre at the Office of Graduate Studies and Professional Learning. The GRAD Centre (http://niehd.nie.edu.sg/grad-centre/about.html) provides comprehensive support to graduate students at NIE across all the 10 departments, covering vital skills such as academic writing, oral presentation, and statistical analysis. As a recognition for her teaching effectiveness, she was awarded the NIE Excellence in Teaching Commendation in 2015 and 2017, and the Nanyang Education Award (School), the highest honour conferred by Nanyang Technological University for teaching excellence at the School level, in 2015.